Abbreviated Katcina Dances
Throughout the summer months there occur in the Hopi pueblos a series of masked dances, generally of a day's duration, to which the author has given the name Abbreviated Katcina dances. They are not accompanied by secret ceremonies, and the participants very in number, the beings being personated differing from year to year.
These dances close with what is called the Niman, or Departure of the Katcinas, a ceremony of nine days' duration, in which there is an elaborate altar, and many secret ceremonies.[1] There are, however, no altars in these abbreviated festivals, nor is there any public announcement of them by the town crier. The dances continue at intervals from morning to night, but are limited to one day, the three or four preceding days being spent in the kivas practicing songs, preparing and painting dance paraphernalia, and making other preparations for the public exhibition. The katcinas in these festivals are accompanied by one or more unmasked priests, who shout to them, sprinkle the dancers with meal, and lead the line as it passes from one dance place to another, showing the trail by sprinkling meal on the ground. These are called the katcina fathers (naamû), and in a general way correspond to the rain priests mentioned by students of Zuñi ceremonies.
Ordinarily all participants in one of these abbreviated dances wear masks with like symbols, but there are four or six dressed as women who accompany the dance by rasping a sheep scapula on a notched stick. Occasionally, however, there is a dance, limited to one day, in which all participants wear different kinds of masks, and personate different katcinas. This dance, known as the Soyohim, has been elsewhere described.[2] From the variety of personations which appear, this dance is a particularly good one for a study of the Hopi symbolism.
Summer Tawa Paholawû (Sun Prayer-stick-making)
The making of the sun prayer-sticks in midsummer is limited to a single day, but does not differ from that in the winter.[3] The Sun priests assemble for this purpose in the room under a house near the Moñ kiva, and the only fetish they use is a stone image of a frog, over which is stretched a string with attached feathers, and which lies on a line of meal drawn diagonally on the floor.
As the Sun priests have no distinctive masks or public dance, no pictures were made to illustrate this ceremony.
